#please if u aare ur so based lets be friends plea

[harukapologist]

Something I've noticed about Haruka and Muu's relationship is that while it's co dependent, Muu seems more of the 'co dependent' one. They're both attached to each other, but at least Haruka makes an effort to get along with the other prisoners and even form friendships with them (like Fuuta and Mikoto). He's even the one to initiate conversations with others, not just Muu. iirc, Muu doesn't really seem close to anyone else other than Haruka. She says in her interrogation that no one is like her cause 'everyone has a screw loose', is apathetic to the victims of Kotoko's attacks, disliking Yuno cause she became cold to Muu, even insults(?) (not really ig, but still) calls Mikoto a 'poser/playboy' in the headphone collab (though ig the character's personalities are still canon in that respect)

It could just show more of how Muu views herself as above everyone else and doesn't really care about them (or at least, doesn't have a proper way to show it) and she knows that Haruka is easily eating out of the palm of her hand, therefore she's glued to his hip cause it's basically like having a personal servant/assistant around. She just thinks that a 'queen and slave relationship' (as Jackalope said himself) is actually a 'friend and friend' relationship

I just found it always weird that Haruka actually tries to have more friends other than Muu, but Muu seems more attached to him than he is to her. Again, I really think it's just to show that Haruka is easy to 'use' and Muu takes advantage of that, therefore she'll have him around to do anything necessary for her (she even feeds him food, she was suspicious about first, in one of the minigram comics, where she even gets called out for using Haruka as a guinea pig)

Not saying that Muu isn't capable of genuinely caring for Haruka nor that she's an abusive monster, but it really just makes me think people are giving her, and HaruMuu in general, too much slack

You have a point, and I agree that people are giving Muu's role in the codependency too much slack (can the fandom please talk about Muu for once without watering her down to either abusive bitch or harmless little girl?) but I think they're both equally codependent on each other, just in different ways. Even though Haruka interacts with the other prisoners more (in fact I think he interacted the most with all the other prisoners and gave the most birthday wishes, but I didnt count so that's just a guess based on my 21773729 rereads of the timelines LMAO) you can really see how Muu's influence seeps into his attitude and mindset; copying Muu's answer almost identically about Kotoko's attacks in his interro, copying her confident "I did nothing wrong" attitude with Es, being so proud of his "new self" etc etc. my boy is isolating himself for her sake even though like you said he has other friendships, but to him only she matters; he's willing to damage and throw away everything he has for her. If Haruka was gone, there'd be no one to listen to Muu, no one she can feel truly superior to (not that she has malicious intent—I think this is a coping mechanism more than anything but I won't talk about that now), unlike the other prisoners whom she feels are superior to her imo—that's why she doesn't approach them but evidently from her occasional convos with them, latest being her birthday TL, she is able to step out of the codependency bubble and talk to them. Granted it's not truly friendships unlike Haruka's bonds with some of the others, but you can't really call Harumuu a healthy friendship either... Muu just has a shallow view of friendships in general. So she would spiral, but so would Haruka, because if Muu was gone he'd have no one who'd love him the way he wants to be loved, no one to dedicate his entire world to, since he sees himself as so so worthless, his only good trait is to be Useful and receive praise and attention for it, so what would he matter if there's no one willing to love him like that? (In his mindset)